I'm On My Way
by SplatDragon
Summary: Tranquilized and shipped thousands of miles away, Arthur has to try and make his way home with only the help of a virtual stranger. Watched by humans, the unusual wolf from the infamous Van Der Linde pack has to overcome hunger, roads, hunters, other wolves, and many other dangers as he attempts to get back to his family.
1. Prologue: Falling Into the Sky

In retrospect, Arthur really should have known better.

Carcasses laying out and about were part and parcel of life. And they were a damned nice part of life, too— they were free meals after all.

And the pack was hungry. It had been a whole elk carcass, completely untouched. Not a mark on it, as though the beast had simply dropped dead where it stood. Which… really should have been his first hint. But he'd seen the carcass, and thought he might be able to spend the rest of his day playing with Jack, or watching deer, and fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

There'd been no birdsong, no crows circling over-head in hopes of a wolf coming to tear into the carcass for them. No rodents chattering to warn one another of the approaching predator, he hadn't even seen a rabbit scatter out of his path. The very air had seemed to be holding its breath, and he really should have listened.

But his mind had been yelling 'free food, free food, free food!' and he had listened to that instead. The one time he had let himself be lazy, and of course everything went wrong.

But he hadn't know that at the time, of course, so he had trotted forward, sniffing at the coarse pelt of the elk's carcass. It hadn't smelled of sickness, or of the O'Driscoll pack, or of anything else dangerous, so he'd taken the scruff in his teeth and began to pull, wanting to get it deeper into their territory before calling for help. He could haul it himself, of course, but it was heavy and would take him most of the day—if Bill or Charles or even John came, they could have it back within a few hours' time. Probably Bill or Charles, though, John was still laid up from that bear attack (if you asked Arthur, though, he was just milking it).

The carcass hadn't even moved, Arthur having only been able to step back enough to pull the scruff taught when there was a sharp pain in his own neck, and for a moment he thought he'd been stung by a bee. Dropping the scruff, he yelped, and jolted back, bracing his paws and shaking himself to dislodge what he took to be the stinger—there was a dull thud, and something unnaturally green fell to the dirt. He'd never seen anything like it before, but it was distinctly human and, like any self-respecting wolf he distrusted anything human, and so he whirled, bolting away from the carcass and away from their territory, not wanting to lead any humans back to his pack.

The brown-wolf only made it a few steps before he realized something was very, very wrong. He stumbled, tripping over the carcass, but dug in and kept going, desperate to get as far away as he could. The world spun around him, sky dancing with the ground, trees falling into the clouds. Stones and bushes blurred at the corners of his vision, and a desperate sprint slowed to an awkward trot, and then he was on the ground. He could only be glad that he hadn't called for help as voices sounded above his head, and footsteps rippled in his ears as he fell into the sky.


	2. Three-Sixty

"Hey."

"Hey, you awake?"

"Heyyyy."

"Are you alive?"

"Are you dead."

"Wake-y wake-y sleeping beauty!"

Arthur drifted in and out of consciousness. He dreams, once, of staggering out of a den, a strange one of hard, cold rock, and running, humans watching behind him. Of finding a small nook under the roots of a tree and collapsing beneath it.

As he opened his eyes, though, the smell of dirt, of tree-that-he'd-never-smelled-before, filled his nose, and he thought, perhaps that it wasn't a dream. His head swam, and he blinked blearily.

"Blue-Eyes! There you are!"

His head jolted up, and he flinched as it slammed into the packed-dirt roof of his temporary den. He'd thought that black fur had belonged to Dutch, hadn't seen the rest of the wolf it belonged to. Evidently, from the high pitched tone of the voice and the sheer chirpiness, he had been very wrong.

"Was starting to think you weren't going to wake up!" The wolf stood, their haunch that had been blocking the entrance of the den vanishing to reveal a leg, and then suddenly there was a face, a young she-wolf beaming in at him. Her eyes were a dull green-gold that gleamed with excitement, and her tongue lolled out in a grin.

"They were right, your eyes are blue!" she announced suddenly, as he shook his head, trying to gather his wits about him, head throbbing.

"...what?" he finally managed, staring at her. How could one wolf be so cheery? She was worse, even, then John and Abigail's pup. He wasn't awake enough for this.

"The humans! When they were releasing you they called you Blue-Eyes! I've watched them release a lot of animals, like, a _lot_, a lot, and they always give them a name. And I thought, I did, 'well, they must really be blue if they're naming him after them', and I was right!" she nodded, "I watched them release you, I like human watching, they don't make any sense, don't make any more sense no matter how much I watch them, mind, but I still try, and you seemed real out of it when they let you go, so I followed you to make sure you didn't get eaten or drowned or fallen off a cliff, and it's a good thing I did because you've been asleep for a _week_, I've been bringing you food and you've been eating it but I don't think you were really awake, no, because you just kind of ate it and didn't act like you were tasting it or seeing me."

...strike that, she was worse than Sean.

Sean. Humans.

He leaped to his paws, the she-wolf jumping back to keep from being barreled over as he charged out of the den, looking around. Nothing smelled the same—the plants, the trees, even the dirt, was different—and he whirled an about-face, interrupting her ("_What are you smelling? Do I really stink that bad because I _just _groomed my fur. I did go after a stoat but I waded through a river on my way back oh that reminds me I have a rabbit for you! It's-"_)

"Where the hell are we?"

She blinked at him, gold-green eyes startled, and shook herself. "Well, I don't rightly know. The humans call it The Reserve. I just call it home, I was born and bred here, see. Haven't ever left it, don't know any different." He moved to speak, to interrupt her before she could pick up steam, but she answered his question before he could even say it, "They're always bringing animals here, can't quite say why. Usually in pairs, though, or groups. Saw a stallion and a few mares get brung in, they've got a few foals now, they're real cute I'll show you if you want. Brought in a pair of barn owls, too, and oh but they're always fighting, if you hear screamin' don't get worried, it's just those two having an argument—"

And Arthur knew. Charles had lost his mother in much the same way, the she-wolf being stolen away by humans while he slept, and it was how Molly's birthpack was brought into the area of their territory. Two wolves, decided by humans to be mates, the humans uncaring of what the wolves thought of it. Thrown together, no matter what happened to them after.

Well, screw that.

"I'm going home."

The she-wolf's gaze softened, and she almost looked pitying. "Everyone says that at first, Blue-Eyes." she shook herself. "But no one leaves once they're brought here. The Reserve is too big, and anyone who manages to get to the edges is chased back."

Arthur bristled his fur, and bared his teeth, "Don't call me Blue-Eyes, that ain't my name."

And she nodded, "Alright, alright, I just didn't know what to call you while you were asleep, after all, and calling you 'wolf-that-I've-been-feeding' wasn't too appealing. I'll tell you mine if you'll tell me yours."

He twitched his ears, looked back over his shoulder, thought about getting up and leaving, but she _had_ been feeding him though she could have left him to starve, and nodded, "Arthur."

She grinned, ears perking up, eyes going bright, tail wagging and tongue lolling as though that was just the best thing she had ever heard, "I'm Fleet! The humans called me Three-Sixty."

Well, the humans were zero-for-two for names, weren't they?


End file.
